Friday, 08/06/2010 Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA
Set 1: Chalk Dust Torture, Guyute, Ocelot, It’s Ice, Cities > The Moma Dance, Bathtub Gin, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan
Set 2: Rock and Roll, Ghost > Mike’s Song > Simple > Backwards Down the Number Line, Show of Life, Seven Below -> Weekapaug Groove, You Enjoy Myself
Encore: Good Times Bad Times
UStream had an excellent streamer last night, sounded like they had a real nice setup with mics and whatnot. I thought the first set was really good, that Cities jam was just incredible. Guyute was awesome as always imo, liked the dark spooky part 
Second set was… interesting. RnR was okay (I don’t really like the song that much, so I’m sort of biased). Ghost sounded much more up tempo than previous recent versions, which is fine, but the funk they had been laying down in Set I made me think they were gonna get real dirty with this one. Then came the first of a few seriously laughable segues / transitions into Mike’s. Now, I know how annoying it is to read people bitch non-stop about execution, tone, etc etc… but holy jeebus there were some “wtf?” moments in that second set.
The simple made up for the sloppy into into Mike’s with one of the best jams I think I’ve heard so far this summer. All four guys were on the same page and the jam was just totally killer, definitely some solid Phish right there. In my opinion… BDTNL and Show Of Life should have been scrapped out of this placement based on what they did with it, that Simple jam right into 7 Below could have been totally perfect. Instead, there was another kind of fade out and then they went into - 7 if I remember correctly. WTF segue #2.
BDTNL sounded very standard. I like the jam a lot usually and thought they were gonna get after it on this one as well but they didn’t go too deep. Show Of Life is a total energy vacuum. I think it’s a nice ballad, but didn’t like where it was played. Then comes a real short - 7 which had a WTF segue #3 into Weekapaug. Some people seemed to like the way they cut it short and went kind of awkwardly into Weekapaug. I thought it was… interesting
At this point I was kind of more paying attention to flubs than anything, so when the YEM intro got a little messy I was just kind of laughing. Standard YEM, always fun to hear though.
GTBT, I just don’t like their version of it. I’ve seen them play it a few times and I’m usually disappointed.
IMO, really good first set with some set II highlights (Ghost, Simple) but marred with several very obvious flubs and weird transitions. Like Trey mentioned in the Bittersweet Motel DVD, fans usually don’t come to the shows to hear them flawlessly nail every transition and change, which is true on my part. However, when they make such blatant screw-ups you kind of have to take notice.
As Doug mentioned in the Live Phish thread. Page playing more Fender Rhodes = Win. I friggin’ love that thing.
First set was awesome! The Cities jam was insane and the Moma and Gin were absolutely on fire.
Second set was definitely a little weird. You guys know I’m not much of a fan of the Mike’s->Simple/Hydrogen->Weekapaug thing, in general… and I have to give them props for attempting to inject some freshness into that routine by switching it up a bit… but it just didn’t flow very well, IMO.
The Mike’s was short and sweet-- which was nice-- and really got the crowd raging. There was barely any build in the jam… they just went straight for the peaks, which I thought was good… then, they head into simple-- which, again, I’m not usually a huge fan of-- and they find this awesome, almost gypsy-like, “mind-left-body”-ish groove that is just sweet and hypnotic. But, just as I’m thinking “holy shit this is going someplace we’ve never been…” something weird happened. It was almost as if the band was thinking the same thing I was, which was “there’s no way a paug is gonna feel right after this jam” and they didn’t know where to go from there. Simple just kinda ended and after a quick, slightly awkward pause, we were in to BDTNL and I’m not sure the band ever completely regained their footing.
I will say that the crowd went fucking nuts when weekapaug made it’s inevitable appearance. But, what really got strange here was that Kuroda was driving the energy at this point way more than the band and the two did not appear to be on sync at all-- which I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced. Basically, the band would be still climbing to a peak but Kuroda would go ahead and light up the stage like the peak was already happening and the crowd would just go nuts even though the band wasn’t doing much yet. Then, a couple times when the band did peak, the crowd ignored it because Kuroda was still doing the “build up” lighting. Did anyone else notice this? It was totally bizarre.
But, in any case, I felt like they got most of their groove back for YEM and the jam before the vocal jam was pretty sick. Also my first GTBT, so no complaints there!
Oh-- and did I mention that this venue fucking rocks??? Looking forward to tonight!
Dudes. Dudes. Seriously dudes…this show is a gem. Old fucking school throw down in the bay is what it was. The first set looks short, but it was still an hour and 15 minutes somehow. The second set, well…man I can’t even describe how sweet I thought it was. This second set is why I go to such extreme lengths to see this band. Not bust-outs, not setlist stats or whatever else…it’s what happened during Simple. For me it was magic. Absolutely stunning jam in a cool theater with a whole pillow of SF Bay fog rolling in over the stage and crowd. I don’t know what constitutes a “best jam”, but that Simple is probably my favorite jam of 3.0 that I’ve seen.
But the whole second set did not have one dull moment. The jamming was on fucking point and the whole set flowed very nicely. Even Show of Life had a ripping guitar solo…it built to a peak very nice and quickly and wasn’t dragged out. The Seven Below really didn’t have a jam, it segued almost immediately into Weekapaug, but it flowed well.
The other major highlight apart from the entire 2nd set was the Cities from the first set. It was all kinds of funked-up.
EDIT: Page is spending a lot more time on the Fender Rhodes during jams. I like this…a lot.
Ghost>Mike’s!! Ouch!! Easily beats out Sand>Horse from Hartford as the roughest moment of the Summer. But they more than make up for it in both Mikes and Simple. Simple jam is pretty whacky, and starts to sound like Nintendo video game music around the 10 minute mark. A lot of fun to listen to. Cities in the first set is straight up Alien Porno Funk . Glad to hear this one getting a bit more time and attention.
If they could just clean up a few of these rushed moments…
I posted my review before I read anyone elses…mine’s much better…last night rocked 
BTW, wtf was up with all the roses?
There must have been at at least $500 worth of roses just sitting there on the stage all night… I saw them lay them out just before the show started and figured something would be said about them… but nothin. Just hundreds of dollars worth of roses chilling there. :wtf:
So since you claim yours is “better” please elaborate on how the whole set flowed very nicely. It’s completely obvious to me, and almost everyone I’ve talked to that listened to last night’s show via the stream, that the second set in fact did not flow nicely. At all. For instance, how the hell did Seven Blow “flow really well” into Weekapaug?
I’m seriously interested in how someone can believe that. I know your probably still on a high after seeing the show so it probably seemed a little different.
IMO, there were some great versions of songs over the entire show. 2nd set set had some reeeeally nice jamming and probably my favorite version of Simple ever.
Do I think it flowed well? No.
I would have obliged you if you weren’t such a dick about it.
Easy cowboy, I’m sure the experience of being there greatly out weighed your stream from couch tour.
Believe that
Who’s talkin shit?
This Simple is the shit!
And I think the joke’s on us regarding the Seven Below>Weekapaug thing. 'Paug would have been totally predictable following ten minutes of Seven Below, but NOBODY saw it coming when it did.
Pretty decent show.
Guyute was played perfectly and very tight and energetic.
But that Simple has to be the hightlight.
gettin into the mike’s now… startin to get dirtaaay… but seriously trey, what the F!! he could have led the whole band into an actual segue into mike’s, not an abrupt and painful screeching halt into the intro riff, it was just plain weird. (A D D)
otherwise, this 2nd set is shaping up nicely, page and mike are really soundin good. i dig.
listened to this show (up until Show of Life) at work tonight. And I thought every song was incredible. It wasn’t the most fluent show but the playing was 10 out of 10. Some high energy ragers, some serene liquid jamming. some type 2 explorations of multiple occasions.
Great songs, great playing, great jams. So a few of the transitions were a little rough. Small price to pay for such incredible music.
^ yeah i hear ya dude… but i’ll still be picky when it’s something like a little patience from trey could have made those transitions soooo much smoother. i’m not askin for him to shit gold bricks
Cities>Moma = 
